In 1967 Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary added bloviate to their
edition defining it as "orating verbosely and windily", but then dropped it from
their next edition and have added it back now as it shows up in my tenth edition. The word is most widely used in the United
States and does not appear in any of the British English dictionaries including
the Oxford English Dictionary or the most recent New Oxford Dictionary of
English. Oxford, Macquarie, Penguin, Collins and Chambers editors have
ignored the word completely.

One of my sources indicates that bloviate is mid-19th century American slang which
"cleverly melds inklings
of the blowhard with hints of blowing off steam, then subverts itself via
self-mockery in its faux Latinate suffix".

The most famous person linked with the word bloviate is U.S. PresidentWarren G. Harding who not only was
described as a bloviator, but also used the
word bloviate very often. He was the epitome of someone who orates
verbosely and windily. When researching bloviate, President Harding's name
came up several times, mostly saying the same thing about him though.
Harding did not invent the word, it is actually much older. It had
recently turned up in the middle of the last century and was found by Fred
Shapiro of the Yale Law School. For example, he found it in the
Debates
and Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision of the Constitution of the
State of Ohio in 1851: "The bloviators attempt to disturb the proceedings of
this Convention". This example among other examples suggests it was a
local word originating in Ohio, which was Harding's home state. It is
thought that bloviate fits in with the U.S. fashion of the early 19th century
along with expansive mock Latinate words such as sockdolager, hornswoggle, and
absquatulate. There is a gap between here and the middle of the 20th
century with the word bloviate. It was only used again in the 1960s and
even then was only linked to the President Warren G. Harding. The word was
only cited again in the 1990s and has become a favorite in the "weird words"
circuit.

Here are a few examples of how the word bloviate has been used in more recent
journalism.

"Anyone who has ever spent an idle morning watching the
Washington talk shows has probably wondered: how did these
people become entitled to earn six-figure salaries bloviating about the week's headlines?
--Robert Worth, New York Times, June 3, 2001

"After five years as president and thirty years as a
political figure, this colossaloaf is still unable to
discipline his urge to... bloviate. --R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., American
Spectator, December 19, 1997